Sony NEX-5n Field Review

In addition to "What a difference an "n" makes", the subtitle of this report should also read "What a difference a year makes". In myFirst Impressions Reviewof theSony NEX-5I was impressed with the technology of reducing an APS-C sensor camera to Lilliputian dimensions. But I was less than impressed with the NEX-5's user interface. In fact I thought it was dreadful.
The back story on this is simply that Sony originally conceived the NEX series as step-up cameras for the point-and-shoot crowd. This meant a dumbed-down user interface, though I never really understood why they saw this as necessary. But then a funny thing happened. Serious photographers discovered that the image quality was very good, that the size was really appealing, and so sales to the enthusiast market subsequently took off.
Sony's NEX cameras were also borne along by the whole mirrorless tide, with Panasonic and Olympus also making strong head-way with Micro Four Thirds. But the NEX cameras were hobbled by more th...